Friendship drama plus influencer thriller? Sign me up! I have loved a few of Jesse Q. Sutanto’s books before and was excited to receive this ARC. I’m happy to say it did not disappoint! Sutanto did a fantastic job of writing the characters as truly not likable. The book was fast paced and kept my attention until the very end.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted (free) ARC

This book got me out of a reading slump, I was completely hooked from the very first chapter.

Aspen & Meredith have been best friends for years, making their own names as influencers with Meredith acting as a mentor to Aspen. But when Aspen surpasses Meredith, it puts a wrinkle in their relationship.

Told in dual POV, this book will have you completely consumed. I was so confused about who I was rooting for here, and honestly I don’t know that I ever came to a clear conclusion on whose side I was on. I would definitely recommend reading this book!!

Many thanks to NetGalley for offering me the chance to read the latest Jesse Q. Sutanto. I've read one of the author's previous books and was about to start the series when this one showed up, so I opted for it instead. Mostly focused on two uber popular influencers, the book shows their rise and fall, their friendship and difficulties, and what others thought of them. But don't think it's so straightforward. I'm humming along, knowing it's a mystery, when bang, someone is killed. Sudden whodunnit, tho we know who it is... more about how to catch them, and what the real creativity of an Instagrammer and TikToker is really all about. Good story, lots to ponder... mostly disliked the characters, but you're meant to. Some people are just terrible! Liked that it was about Asian-American women, so it added a nuance we don't see often enough.

Seven years ago, Meredith was a social media influencer on the rise when she met Aspen, a woman who was struggling to find her own footing in the cutthroat social media world. Meredith took Aspen under her wing, and showed how to grow her following. But as Aspen became more successful and eventually bypassed Meredith's follower count, the dynamic of their relationship changed — what looked peachy on the outside was rotten on the inside, much like the social media personas they created. With heightened competition and cutthroat tactics, who knows what they'll do to get ahead of each other.

Prior to this novel, Sutanto's novels have been funny and filled with quirky characters that you'd love to spend time with (even if it's just a short period of time because they're a LOT) — see Dial A for Auntie and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murder. This book, however, is a straight-up thriller with absolutely despicable characters (with the exception of six-year-old Elea, who I think I would get along with quite well) doing horrible things in the name of self-promotion and garnering a few more likes on Instagram. And you know what? Sutanto nails it. This book is full of slowly ratcheting tension, crazy twists, and everything you want out of a psychological thriller. Plus it drives a stake through the heart of influencer culture. Absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to recommend it to everyone.

As a rubbernecker of online drama I keep up with the scandals of way too many influencers I never have and never will choose to follow, so this was right up my alley. It was fascinating to see the business portrayed so starkly, and just as frustrating as it is to watch stuff like this go down in real life, particularly when it comes to influencers who exploit their children. The unreliable narration got a little goofy in retrospect after the midway point - it's giving villain who pretends to be good and then smiles evilly into the camera after they've gotten away with it - but I'll forgive it because this was just too right up my alley and engrossing enough to finish in an afternoon.

I also want to note something weird about my own reading habits, which is that every time I've read a book that prominently relies on the use of Facebook I've felt like it's already dated by the time the book is published, yet we're still societally so deep in the TikTok of it all that books like this feel more like cultural artifacts in progress. It won't be relevant forever, and it will actually be hilarious if the TikTok ban goes through before this book is even on the shelves, but the phenomenon especially as portrayed here is, I think, absolutely something worth thinking about and commenting on.

My thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC.

Rival social media influencers. Frenemies. Two women willing to do anything to stay on top.

Meredith Lee is a social media darling and was one of the biggest influencers once upon a time. But when her protege, Aspen Palmer, becomes a bigger success than her, well, something drastic has to be done. How did Aspen become so much bigger than her? When Mer (kind of breaks into Aspen's house but not really) and finds a family iPad just lying around, she had to take it! Maybe the secret to Aspen's success is hidden in its digital depths! What Mer discovers is jaw-dropping. Aspen's life isn't as #authentic as she wants everyone online to believe. So Mer decided to do a little (just a little) sabotaging... Just enough to even the playing field and maybe come out on top.
But Mer has vastly underrated what her friend/ex-friend/rival. Aspen will do anything to stay the big social media influencer she is. She didn't work this hard for nothing after all. The question is, will she figure out who is trying to sabotage her? And what will she do if she does?

This book is an exploration of internet fame and the unraveling of a toxic friendship.
Mer and Aspen have an interesting dynamic. Very love/hate. And I loved the power shift within the relationship and how unhinged it made them both. The depths of depravity that they would go to for the price of internet fame was shocking and delicious to watch unfold.
There were some great twists thrown in here too, and the ending was fantastic. I wouldn't have wanted it to end any other way.

This is a quick and fun read that I recommend to anyone who's a fan of thrillers featuring female friendships and/or social media.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jesse Sutanto writes some of my grandma's favorite books, so I was curious how You Will Never Be Me was going to go and it went....perplexingly. The story centers around Aspen and Meredith and their obsession with being influences, specifically, momfluencers. I appreciated the concept behind this story because it is interesting to consider the behind the scenes of influences, but the story lacked characters with their own independent personalities and relied upon an unreliable narrator to progrss the plot. Meredith and Aspen sound too much alike in their chapters and Aspen's character seems to do a 180 in the later halves. Is it intentional? Are we, the readers, purposefully mislead to believe Aspen is somehow the way she's not similar to her TiKtok viewers? Why does the author choose to tell us about how confused and arrived Aspen is in certain chapters when it turns out Aspen plotted things all along. That comes across as disingenuous. Don't essentially fool readers into thinking X is happening because our narrator is telling us X is happening and then later say "haha, just kidding! I actually did Y" and forget to address the emotions you were sharing with X. The twists also seemed a little nonsensical with an ending that felt rushed and slapped together in the last half.

I did still enjoy the storyline and was intrigued. It isn't the greatest thriller I've ever enjoyed, but I did find it a quick read overall. I'd call this a "popcorn thriller" or in line with expected for the thrillers that happen on Lifetime TV. I do, however, think the book dates itself with all the references to current social trends and medias and this may be difficult for future readers to relate to or find interest in because they won't have the context for the book. I also saw some missed edits, so it seems like it needs another round of copy edits. I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher providing me this copy to read and review!

Synopsis:
Influencer Meredith was ditched by her mentee Aspen as soon as Aspen blew up. So when Meredith does some light stalking, it’s hard to feel bad for her. When she steals Aspen’s ipad and then her ideas, things get interesting.

Aspen is struggling. Her seemingly picture-perfect life is falling apart around her. She’s late to appointments, her daughters are rebelling, and even her husband is finding her hard to deal with.

When Meredith goes missing, Aspen’s world is upended, and she starts getting threats. But she won’t let anything, or anyone, get in the way of her life.

Thoughts:
I love books about influencers. There is just something about them that makes me want to grab the popcorn and a blanket and cozy up for a great read.

I loved getting this story from dual POV. Books done this way are usually more enjoyable for me, and that was the case with this one. In this case it was prior best friends, and I don’t think I’ve ever read one done this way before. Usually, I get dual POV in romance books, not necessarily thrillers, so it was refreshing.

I really loved to hate both Aspen and Meredith. Aspen decided to take the filtered approach to everything, and hey it worked, until it didn’t, and she hit a wall. Meredith struggled with ideas because she was so tired from being a single mom, but just when I thought I could sympathize with her, I learned something shocking and NOPE that went out the window – ha.

It wasn’t surprising that there were some generalized stereotypes thrown in throughout the pages. I know that they exist for a reason, but I think there were some good points as well. People want relatable but not unattainable, so it has to fit that niche when we post online. It’s a tricky balance and I know that I’ve struggled with it myself.

Seriously this book would make a good movie because it had so much drama and was a lot of fun!

Thank you to:
Thank you to Berkley Pub @BerkleyPub and Netgalley @Netgalley for this e-arc. All thoughts are my own.

I was thrilled to get a copy of Jesse Q Sutanto’s upcoming novel, You Will Never Be Me! You already know I love influencer drama in fiction, and a good twisted friendship thriller, and basically everything Jesse Q Sutanto writes, and the combination didn’t disappoint!

You Will Never Be Me is a pageturning thriller about two influencer friends/rivals, but I also found interesting themes about online identity.

I previously read Sutanto’s YA novel Didn’t See That Coming, about high school students, online gaming, and identity. The two novels have wildly different plots and vibes, but there’s a similar exploration of online and offline identities. In Didn’t See That Coming, teen gamer Kiki gets sick of the online harassment as a girl playing a fighting game, so she makes a new character under a male name. Not exactly to deceive others, just to be able to play without harassment. When she strikes up a friendship with another player, her offline identity and her online identity threaten their very real friendship.

You Will Never Be Me explores some of the same questions about the dissonance between online and offline. Influencers Mer and Aspen curate their lives for their online followers. Ok, curate may be an euphemism, the story reveals lots of faking it for the ‘gram. Motherhood influencer Aspen cooks photogenic but flavorless meals for her adorable kids (and her terrible husband, Ben), she bribes her kids to be adorable for the camera, and she secretly feeds her children grocery store fare. Motherhood influencing is her fulltime job, so she’s constantly maintaining the brand. There’s a lot of tension from Aspen as she worries that someone will uncover her secret, even though these seem pretty mild so far.

When this shocking truth came out to the followers, though, I was sort of surprised. Surely we all see those gorgeous Insta reels and know they’re fake, right? If not entirely fake, at least carefully edited, filtered, and exaggerated for effect.



Quinn Morgendorffer, the OG of GRWM Filters

Even though I didn’t think worries about organic recipes or kid’s clothes were particularly high stakes (yet… that part’s coming!), this raises interesting ideas about the performed lives of influencers. Influencing has the same power of reality TV for me, that idea that it’s showing real people and real events, but also highly edited at the same time. The novel looks at this idea of living a curated life, carefully being the right kind of Asian, the right kind of mother, the right kind of effortlessly perfect, with a curated streak of imperfection for authenticity!

The story is told in alternating chapters from Meredith and Aspen’s viewpoints. This style is usually not my favorite in thrillers, mostly because it often relies on the Unspeakable Secret Plot Device, referencing the terrible thing that no one can even know, and then swaps for a new narrator. But here, I think You Will Never Be Me is playing with that trope, because after all Aspen’s anxiety over her dark secret of feeding her kids upscale grocery-store food, after that, when Aspen has a real secret to keep hidden, she’s practical and not dramatic at all.

Both perspectives, Aspen and Meredith, were entertaining, even though they were both unlikably self-centered. I tend to enjoy an unlikable female protagonist, especially when she has a clear, believable motive for all her unlikable, unrelatable actions. Here, we see both women put so much time and effort into their influencer status, and see their anxiety that they might lose it. It’s not a creative hobby for them, they’re not enjoying coming up with new or creative ideas (Mer even steals Instagram Reel ideas from Aspen), it’s 100% work, with deadlines, constant pressure, and networking requirements.

The motivation works because they’re both just so very committed to being influencers. Women characters aren’t usually permitted to be unlikable and single-minded about their success, unless they’re mean-boss side character (Mossa, in The Mimicking of Known Successes and The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, has the same single-minded focus on her career, at the expense of personal relationships. Of course, Mossa is a wildly different, way-more-likeable character in a wildly different genre, but it still stands out to me because it’s unusual for a female protag to focus intensely on career success.)

The conflict comes because Mer, who was a successful influencer first, showed Aspen how to establish her brand and grow her platforms. She remade @RyleebelleSings as Aspen. After marriage and adorable twins, though, Aspen’s overtaking Meredith, and doesn’t seem to remember who built her up. This thriller has hacking (the modern kind with synced iDevices), stalking, influencer posturing, and a best friendship turned evil. I enjoyed the misdirections a lot, mostly because Sutanto is great at playing with genre expectations. I read a lot of thrillers, and I can get a little annoyed when I feel like the resolution is too obvious. (I don’t mean foreshadowing — I love foreshadowing and hints! I mean the genre-aware obvious ending, when the book follows a thriller pattern too closely.) The resolution of You Will Never Be Me was not obvious at all, and I actually wasn’t even sure what kind of ending I was hoping for! Our murderer was so heartlessly manipulative, but I was also weirdly impressed with her highly practical plans. The Insta Lives were so high stakes! Without a hint or a spoiler, I’ll say the ending is satisfying and solid.

Fans of this one will enjoy Amanda Jayatissa’s You’re Invited, another story of ex-besties, layers of lies, and social media influencing, set at a lavish Sri Lankan wedding, and Social Creature, a thriller about twisted friendship, jealousy, and social media alibis, set in Manhattan.

ARC book review
You Will Never Be Me, by Jesse Q. Sutanto, will be published by Berkley on August 20, 2024. I received an advance copy of this book to review. Opinions and reactions on my book blog are my own, as always.

Even the cover has a air of suspense and mystery to it. It worked with the overall feel of this type of book and enjoyed the use of influencers in this world. It had a great concept for the genre and was written perfectly. I enjoyed the way Jesse Q. Sutanto wrote this and was able to create unique characters and enjoyed everything going on.

You Will Never Be Me was an amazing drama giving insight into the world of influencers. It had the perfect blend of humor, drama, and suspense.

In this binge worthy thriller, two mom influencers are enemies after being friends for years. Aspen has become more successful as an influencer in recent years, and Meredith found herself left behind and jealous of her success. What was once two best friends working together devolves into stalking, jealousy, and dangerous deception.

This book was delightfully fun and I devoured it! The characters are intentionally extremely unlikable and shallow, but they all end up surprising you by what they are capable of. It was interesting to see inside both Meredith and Aspen’s thoughts as they both narrate the story. It’s a psychological thriller with a domestic setting and I really enjoyed the way it was written. I would definitely recommend this to those who enjoy a domestic or psychological thriller with a focus on female friendship, influencer culture, and multiple POV.

Thank you to Jesse Q. Sutanto, Berkley, and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

What a fun and twisted book this turned out to be! I was easily swept right in with this one. Flawed friendships are one of my favorite tropes in a book. Meredith and Aspen a were both interesting to read about. Both narratives were entertaining. I read this over the course of the weekend and I can feel the book hangover setting in already. I wasn’t sure how the ending would play out, and as unlikeable as Aspen and Meredith were you couldn’t really help but root for them both. Jesse Q. Sutanto is a really talented writer. There was not a stone left unturned in this book. Definitely recommending this one to other readers. 4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley publishing for providing me with an advance reader copy.

I received a free eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Perhaps I should have a more organized approach to how I read my ARCs, because this book doesn’t come out until August. My strategy is just to scroll through what’s on my Kindle and pick the thing that jumps out in the moment - I rarely look at the release date until I’m actually trying to write a review. In this case, I’m dealing with some pretty bummer life stuff, so I wanted something frothy and distracting, and this fits the bill perfectly.

It’s tough to talk about this without giving too much away…which, as others have already pointed out, did not seem to be a concern for whoever wrote the blurb for this book! It’s a satirical tale of dueling momfluencers (a word that hurts my soul to type!). Meredith was once at the top of the influencer game, and took Aspen (formerly Ryleebelle, yeesh) under her wing and helped her grow her brand. But then Aspen got married, had a family, and switched her brand from lifestyle to “mom”, and basically blew up overnight. Given that they’ve always had more of a frenemy relationship, Meredith is understandably bitter about how their fortunes have shifted. She’s still trying to crack the high hundred thousands of followers, while Aspen is in the millions.

When the novel opens, the two friends have had a falling out, it’s not clear over what. We switch back and forth between their perspectives, so we can see that, while they each miss the other one, neither wants to be the first to cave and offer an apology. Things pretty much just go downhill from there.

I don’t want to spoil too much about what happens next, but suffice it to say, things get bonkers in a hurry. This is clearly meant to satirize influencers, so it’s extremely over the top, and every small revelation that a toddler could have reasoned out is treated with Maximum! Shock! Value! Eventually, things develop into a mystery, but it’s honestly more fun to watch these two bozos attempt to destroy one another.

I’ll save any spoilery comments for closer to the release date, but the one thing that bugged me (which could still change, given how far out the pub date is) was the ages of Aspen’s twin daughters. They’re meant to be six, but they read as closer to 10 or 11. One of them is sweet and loving and just wants mommy to be happy, while the other is snarky and does everything she can to ruin Aspen’s “happy family” videos (because, and I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say this: They’re all extremely staged and fake). Elea, the snarky one, read as MUCH older than six. And again, I get that it’s satire, so we’re not looking for reality here, but any time the twins were in a scene, it bugged me, because I kept thinking there’s no way a six year old would say or act that way. I see no reason why they can’t be aged up a few years. Other than that, this is pretty entertaining, as long as you don’t take it too seriously.

This mystery/thriller revolves around two friends Meredith and Aspen. Meredith met Aspen when she was on top of the influencer game. She took Aspen under her wing and taught her everything she knows about social media. These two became inseparable , even called each other soul sisters! Until, Aspen blew up and gained millions of followers more than Meredith. Jealousy seeped into their friendship and they have a a major falling out, Meredith made Aspen, now she will destroy her.

This was such a fun read full of juicy drama! The ridiculousness of the influencers made it so entertaining. There were so many twists but I appreciated the realism. I find often mystery/thriller authors try so hard to shock you, it becomes unrealistic. Overall, a really enjoyable and fast paced read. Keep this book on your shelf for your next reading slump, because this is sure to pull you out!

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley publishing for the chance to read this ARC. All opinions are of my own and given freely.

First things first: publishing companies need to stop <b>REVEALING SO DAMN MUCH</b> in their blurbs. This blurb reveals half of the story for no good reason. I get that they have better information on what works, but I would be satisfied with the premise summarised as "someone is out to ruin influencer Aspen Palmer's life - but who?" This book is definitely still worth reading even knowing the whole blurb (there is more), but it seems bizarre that Sutanto chose not to reveal the information that the blurb does until later on, while the blurb is out there telling the reader exactly where it goes.

Onto the novel itself...

<b>3.5 stars</b>

Here's the thing: I don't watch momfluencers. I don't have kids, which might have something to do with it. Their content just isn't interesting to me. But what I <i>do</i> know about parent influencers is...some of the worst stuff I've heard about people on the Internet. And, look, I grew up on the Internet, so I've heard a lot of terrible things. But let me just think of a few things I've heard about momfluencers in the last few years.

Intentionally scoping out a severely disabled child from a foreign country, then "rehoming" said disabled child when the child turned out to have severe disabilities. Returning to the Internet to lie about that exact sequence of events and to continue looking for another disabled child to exploit, because more or less selling one on eBay wasn't enough. Posting content of young daughters in underwear and discussing intimate matters like periods and "The Talk" for their audience of mainly adult men. Pulling cruel "pranks" on one child to highlight how they are the unloved/unwanted one, while said child screams and sobs hysterically, and posting those videos on YouTube. Forcing a teenager to sleep on the floor instead of on a bed for months as a punishment and then getting said teenager to appear in videos to defend it because it wasn't all that bad - and going on to abuse, beat, and imprison their younger siblings.

All the work of momfluencers that have found their way into my Internet life. (And their husbands, who are at best blank-faced enablers, and, at worst, abusive leaders in the whole nightmare, but still to slip away without responsibility).

All this to say: nothing affirms the misanthropic feeling that people might be worse than you imagine like parent influencers. That's not even touching that children put in this position even by loving and well-intentioned people aren't legally entitled to a cent of the millions they can make in exchange for hours of work, lost privacy, and the creation of a permanent digital footprint before they've even entered school.

For half this book, Jesse Sutanto's new novel butted up against this problem for me. How do you satirise a profession that is both so wild and, honestly, repellant? Aspen and Meredith aren't pleasant people, but their behaviour pales in comparison to so many people in their position. As a result, the novel hits this weird middle ground of being just crazy enough to be infuriating and page-turning, but not being heightened or comic or thought-provoking or even dark enough to take me over that ledge of annoyance into enjoying myself. It's still good - it just doesn't quite live up to either the premise or Sutanto's previous novels.

Then that twist hit and <i>alllllll</i> that changed. Sutanto takes her foot off the gas and all hell breaks loose, and we had fun! It's pretty derivative of other novels, but it's also fun to see those tropes getting updated for an age of TikTok and general out of control influencer backlash and backlash-to-the-backlash. Read it, switch off your brain, and have fun.

Thank you Netgalley for the gifted copy. This was a rollercoaster thriller. One minute you thought you knew where the story was going and then bam plot twist. This was a good read.

After obsessing over I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET, I was thrilled to read YOU WILL NEVER BE ME, a story that predictably, I gobbled up in a day. The thing that I loved about I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET, that I was thrilled to find still held true in this story, was that the dialogue and inner thoughts of the characters were startlingly hilarious, relatable and words that I would never put on paper, but gleefully loved reading because I’d thought of similar sentiments a time or two. It was refreshing to live vicariously through characters, who are imperfect, catty and sometimes cruel.

The concept of two friends climbing the ranks of influencer stardom hooked me from the beginning, especially when the gracious mentor gets left in the dust by the mentee, who surpasses her golden status. The idea of influencers of all kinds always fascinated me because they’re always so darn polished. The past few months, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of easy food prep videos and they’re always perfectly poised and plated, whereas mine are… not. How do they do it?! I loved the darker side of the influencer world, the catty competition, the real rawness behind the camera, the importance of an M over a K. That’s millions of followers, versus a meager embarrassing k.

If you’re looking for a quick read with snappy dialogue and dark, but satisfyingly naughty inner dialogue, look no further. Throw in mothers behaving badly, an incriminating iPad with a treasure trove of unedited videos capturing a not so perfect life, and one murder… you have yourself a good time.

First I’d like to say thanks so much to Berkley and NetGalley for my early copy of You Will Never Be Me to read and review.

This is a bingeable thriller (read in a day) and I’ve never read this author before although I have heard it’s her first adult thriller.

The characters here are insufferable to say the least. Just zero redeemable qualities at all. Those in no way usually sways my feeling about books I read. I tend to love to hate the horrible characters. Here not so much. It was hard!

I seem to be in the minority here by saying I did not LOVE this book. Did I hate it? No, I did not hate it but it was a bit predictable, familiar and over the top for me personally. Perhaps it’s meant to be just that.

Toxic friendship (understatement), affairs, inauthentic over the top content creators and murder are all here. All good ingredients and I’m sure many thriller lovers will love this one. 🤷‍♀️

It’s a 3 star for me which is not horrible but I just wasn’t thrilled here and found myself rolling my eyes and asking myself if this was satire (maybe it is !) too many times.

I will def give this author another read though as the writing was good. I think I’ve just had it with influencer premises.

This book was so good. It was twisty, unpredictable, and thrilling. I love how it explores the dark side of influencer culture. I was sucked in from the very beginning.